


Shards of the Self

by Kaiserkorresponds



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Haircuts, Hunt Avatar Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Alice "Daisy" Tonner Friendship, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Needs Therapy, Late Night Conversations, Non-Consensual Haircuts, Post-Alice "Daisy" Tonner in The Buried Fear Domain, The Magnus Archives Season 4, Trans Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:09:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29855823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaiserkorresponds/pseuds/Kaiserkorresponds
Summary: "The hair thing?""Yeah, the hair thing."For a split second, Jon considered if predators had even developed the ability to communicate other than to most effectively kill their prey. "What specifically about my hair?""It's too long.""Well, yes. I suppose it has been a while since I've cut it. I'm not sure how that affects you though."Daisy huffed out another breath. "You keep flicking it."She carded a hand through her own pixie cut, mimicking the motion by shoving her meager curls away in a caricature that wasn't quite accurate with her short strands.--Jon and Daisy have a discussion about power and control (indirectly) and Jon cuts his hair.
Relationships: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Alice "Daisy" Tonner
Comments: 6
Kudos: 39





	Shards of the Self

"Are you really gonna keep that up all night?" 

Daisy's drawl shattered the silence of the office, the dull irritation in it more of a thud than a slice amidst the dusty air. 

"Keep what up?" Jon raised his gaze slowly from the sheaf of papers. "Working?" 

"No. Not sure you could stop that if you tried." Daisy huffed. "I meant the hair thing." 

"The hair thing?" 

"Yeah, the hair thing." 

For a split second, Jon considered if predators had even developed the ability to communicate other than to most effectively kill their prey. "What specifically about my hair?" 

"It's too long." 

"Well, yes. I suppose it has been a while since I've cut it. I'm not sure how that affects you though." 

Daisy huffed out another breath. "You keep flicking it." 

She carded a hand through her own pixie cut, mimicking the motion by shoving her meager curls away in a caricature that wasn't quite accurate with her short strands. 

"And that's–" 

"Annoying." Daisy cut him off sharply. 

"Right." Jon let his own sigh deflate his chest. "I suppose there isn't a way to convince you to ignore my own actions with my own hair?" 

"No." 

Abruptly, an image of a pack of hyenas flashed through Jon's mind. Their uncoordinated efforts at conversing leading to no discernible outcome or benefit. 

"What do you want me to even do then? A hair tie?" 

Daisy's gray irises tracked down his face, lingering on the curls that framed his cheekbones. 

Unconsciously, one of his hands rose up to cradle the edges of them. 

"You've got scissors, right?" 

"No." Jon said stiffly. "Well, er, yes. But, no. You're not cutting my hair." 

Daisy huffed out another breath; her sigh total nearing the dozens for the night. "Just a trim. Not even a few inches. So it'll be out of your face at least." 

"I–" Jon broke off. Attempting to understand the infuriating nature of her vagueness, as always, as futile as scraping nails across a chalkboard when she wasn't in the mood to be open. "I don't want to cut my hair." 

"You should." 

"Not because you say so." 

Daisy's lips curled up into a smirk. "So, it's about rebellion, then?" 

"I don't need to justify why I don't want to alter my own body simply because you decided it's annoying." Jon muttered sharply, only a hint of the bitterness seeping into the words. 

"Not just me though, right?" Daisy's canines flashed in the dim light. "You've got a reason for keeping it like that."

"Yes, sure, of course, I do. Not that we've been effectively trapped here for years." Jon stressed the sarcasm harshly. 

"You get curries sometimes." 

"What does that have to do with anything?" Jon huffed. 

Daisy shrugged, her hand ruffling back through her sparse bangs. "You do leave for some things." 

Jon fought to eke out a last bit of patience from where it was buried under years of tumultuous anxiety. "Yes, well. I do count food as more of a necessity than a haircut." 

"But, you could if you'd like." 

"But I don't want to." Jon scowled. 

Daisy's sigh deepened into a breathy chuckle that felt a bit too similar to a cackle. "Then, there's a reason. Isn't that all of what your Watcher's stuff is about?" 

Jon leaned back against the metal of the chair; ignoring the whisper of his thoughts that he was more exposed in a reclined position. "Maybe the reason is that I just like it." 

"Since when do you like anything?" 

"I like things." 

"Name one." 

"I like–" Jon wracked his thoughts for a suitable answer that wouldn't give her claws any purchase. "I like The Archers." 

"You fucking hate The Archers." 

Jon felt his lips twist into a frown, his eyebrows drawing in towards the edges of his corneas. "I listen to them." 

"Doesn't mean you enjoy it." Daisy stretched upward, her joints creaking with the motion and the low quality of the chair she'd chosen to hunker in for the night, before her eyes pinned back onto him. "You don't like your hair." 

"What if you are correct?" Jon asked. "What's your aim in all of this?" 

"I was going to cut it for you." 

Jon had an abrupt flash of a hyena's grin melded into a storming forest and a slit across his trachea. "I'm not exactly a fan of that idea."

Daisy sprawled back into the chair as far as her nature would allow. "You're not a fan of your hair either." 

"If I recall." Jon said dryly. "You're the one who's not a fan of my hair." 

Daisy scoffed. "You just admitted to not liking it." 

"That doesn't mean that I'm going to let you hack it all off." 

Daisy's eyes narrowed. "That's your problem in life." 

"What? That I won't allow an unhinged fear avatar to slice off parts of my body? That's not exactly an irrational issue to have."

There was a terse silence as Daisy's jaw twitched, clearly chewing on the words, and Jon swallowed, his throat abruptly bone dry and his meager survival instincts screaming at him to gulp the admittance back. 

"How about," Daisy's drawl broke the quiet in a strange deja vu. "You hold the scissors." 

"What?" 

"You hold them." Daisy's body rippled in a faux loose motion. "You cut it yourself and I'll hold the mirror or something else like that." 

Jon debated the merits of arguing that regardless of who was doing the cutting; he wasn't in the market for a haircut, before hitting the sharp wall of acquisition. One that may have been painted the steel gray of Daisy's irises, but in all truth was adorned with all of his own picture frames. "Alright." 

"Right." Daisy nodded briskly. "Let's get to it, then." 

"Now?" 

"Yes, now." Daisy huffed irritatedly. "All you bloody watchers. All talk and no action." 

Jon fought the impulse to snap out a few words about predators and lack of clear communication, but instead merely sighed. 

"Would you–" 

"They're in the top left underneath the book about indigenous tree species." Daisy drawled, clearly anticipating his request and foiling it. 

"Yes, right." Jon shook off the intrinsic tinge of fear that her bland answer had sparked. 

The faintest bit shakily, he jerked open the drawer and withdrew the thin desk shears. They were no replacement for the sharp razor a barber would have used, but they held an edge and the shape of them slotted neatly in his hand. 

"You're gonna need a mirror." Daisy's voice broke through his reverie of the blade. 

"Yes, of– of course." 

"Here." Before he could rifle through the desk for something reflective, Daisy produced her cell phone with the camera reversed, holding it an arms length out from her so that it rested within an easy range for him. 

"Right." Jon nodded, carefully arranging himself in front of the screen with the scissors held adjacent in one palm. "Let's– let's do this." 

Without further preamble, he snipped at the edge of one lock. 

It fluttered down in almost slow motion; the thick weight of it sinking almost instantly to the floor, but the weight of its emotional toll suspending it for what felt as though it was hours. 

Jon watched it with a distant gaze. As if the neatly sliced curl wasn't a direct consequence of his own hand. 

"Right, there." Daisy's smirk was audible. "You'll be cleaned up in no time." 

Jon jerked his gaze up to her. The feathery bits of her own pixie cut laid flat against her scalp after being mussed earlier, and the glint in her eye was half predatory and half of what he wished wasn't understanding. 

"Is it–" He broke off. "How short?" 

Daisy shrugged, the camera angle bouncing with the motion. "S'up to you." 

"Is any of this really up to me?" 

There was another of their stiff silences; the weight of the question pressed down harshly against both of their chests. 

"This is." Daisy said, her voice quiet but firm. 

Jon slowly raised his eyes back to hers. 

The same smirk as always tugged at the edge of her mouth and compounded by the dull bluntness of her voice, it almost appeared careless. Yet, deep underneath, he could feel the tug of sincerity in her steely expression and see just a hint of her reasoning in the animalistic dilation of her pupils. And possibly, there was just the faintest bit of empathy etched into the drawn lines of her face. 

"Yes, I suppose it is." 

Jon inhaled, feeling his chest expand free of the restraints that had been pushing on it since she had first spoken. 

Slowly, he raised the scissors back and began to carefully prune back the wild edges of his curls. Carefully, snipping each one to a length that cleared his vision and brushed the coarseness of them back behind his cheeks to where they didn't form a curtain across his face.

As they fell, he didn't watch them. 

Instead, he trained his gaze upon the mirror and behind it the flicker of approval in Daisy's irises and the soft glow of his own. Both removed from the realities of life for a simple second and both relishing the feeling of control within the tiny split they had cracked into reality. 

When Jon was finished, his curls laid smoothly in their rings and the length of them wasn't scraping as much as it was grounding. 

And, his view of Daisy's feather-light waves had abruptly twisted from utilitarian to a luxury; especially as the hints of sympathy in her eyes spoke more than articulation ever could.

**Author's Note:**

> Late night Jon + Daisy thoughts ?? 
> 
> Kudos and comments are very appreciated if you enjoyed !! <3
> 
> (Also the trans Jon tag doesn't play into this v heavily but it was still a lense I wrote this through and it's hinted at a couple of times !!)


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